


deeper

by Razia



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Chalice Dungeons, Character Slowly Going Insane, Gen, heavy atmosphere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razia/pseuds/Razia
Summary: The dungeons call, their voice inscrutable but there, ringing in her ears. Clawing at her insides, scraping the walls of her skull.The dungeons call, and Victoria can do nothing but answer.
Relationships: Eileen the Crow & The Hunter (Bloodborne), The Hunter & Plain Doll (Bloodborne)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Fic In A Box





	1. [story]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apotheosizing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apotheosizing/gifts).



> For apotheosizing, for Fic In A Box 2020.
> 
> Dear giftee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to write about the chalice dungeons. I delved deeper :snort: into them than I’ve ever had before, just so I could write this! It was inspired by [this video by Jacob Geller](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLY2c12O44c).
> 
> \- chapter 1 is the story, and the first part of the gift;  
> \- chapter 2 is the fanmix, and the second part of the gift;  
> \- and the third part is a [fanart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27226549).
> 
> I hope you enjoy them all <3

_Dear mother,_

_I have finally arrived in Yharnam. I must admit I was expecting something more... organized. For such a famous place, Yharnam is lacking in hospitality and clean streets. The city is a mess of strange, vertical architecture and weird, shifty people. I got here early in the morning today, and there was barely anyone at all on the streets. The few people milling about were unwilling to tell me where the clinic was. One old man even spat at my feet! Thankfully I met a pair of sweet girls and their mother, and they were kind enough to accompany me to the clinic. A nice doctor by the name of Iosefka told me I’d have to wait until the afternoon for my appointment, seeing as they were rather full and things ran longer than they expected._

_I was dejected for a moment, but she let me stay in a side room, and even brought me lunch. It has been a strange day, but I’m looking forward to talking to any doctor. Hopefully they will have something for me, even if it takes days or weeks. If it works I can come back here with brother, so that he may get treated too. Fingers crossed, mother, that all this suffering will soon be over._

_It’s almost time for my appointment, finally. I’ll pay someone to deliver this letter to the post office. If everything goes well, by the time you are reading this letter I will be on my way home._

_Sincerely and with love,_

_Victoria_

“Welcome home, good hunter.”

Victoria opens her eyes to the cloudy, grey visage of the Hunter’s Dream. A brief pat to her stomach reveals no wounds, though she can still smell the blood staining her clothes a deep, deep red. It was one of the men patrolling the streets near Gilbert’s house that got her; a blink, getting distracted by a random noise, and next thing she knows there’s a garden tool thrust into her stomach. The squelch it made as the man dragged it out of her and in again is still ringing in her ears, in a loop.

Her hand comes away stained in blood—blood that slowly disappears the more she looks at it, as if washed away by something invisible. She moves her eyes from her hand, now clean, to Doll, standing perfectly straight against the backdrop of the workshop.

Doll still has that same sweet, vacant smile on her face. The same one that has greeted Victoria every time she has died.

(but is it still death if she’s only dreaming?)

(is she dreaming?)

( _is_ she?)

“Hello, Doll,” Victoria finally answers. The ‘name’ still rolls strangely on her tongue, but Doll refuses to accept a name, and Victoria refuses to think of her as a toy, so they compromise. Doll tilts her head slightly, her light green eyes intent on Victoria’s face.

“You look tired, dear hunter.”

“Got stabbed by a patrol. Nothing that hasn’t happened before.”

Doll nods, solemn. One of the messengers scurries about her feet, swishing her dress back and forth. Victoria hides a wince. She doesn’t want them to realize how creeped out she is, by the living doll, by the tiny monsters that seem to follow her everywhere, by the way Gherman looks through her whenever they talk, as if she’s unimportant beyond her duty.

She won’t let them see. She won’t falter.

“I’ll be heading back out now. I’ll be back shortly,” she says, waving at Doll, not wanting to be rude despite herself and her many doubts.

Doll nods again, silent as she watches Victoria kneel at the only working headstone. She can barely assimilate to herself that this first one leads her to all those horrible locations throughout Yharnam, and she definitely doesn’t want to know where the other sleeping headstones might take her.

She touches the base, the stone cold and oddly smooth. She expects, as she always does, the warmth of the candles to reach her face, but they never do. Just another oddity to add to this fever dream. With eyes closed, she imagines where she wants to go. A window, a lantern with an orange glow, the smell of incense so intense that it clogs her senses, a gate, a ladder. Something whispers in front of her, then another something, then another, until they’re a tiny cacophony of tiny whispers, barely audible but still grating to her nerves. A small hand, surprisingly warm and unsettling because of it, touches hers.

Everything seems to quiet down for one fleeting second.

When she opens her eyes, Gilbert’s door is right in front of her.

He coughs, the sound loud, which means he’s by the window. She knocks on it, unnecessarily—despite the strong incense, she knows he could smell her the moment she stepped back into this reality.

“Ah, good hunter. How fare you? It seems like days since we last spoke.” Gilbert’s voice is raspier than the last time they talked, and he coughs again and again, until Victoria’s own throat hurts in sympathy.

“I am well, thank you. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you, Gilbert?”

Despite the weirdness, the creepiness of her situation, Victoria will be damned if she doesn’t help someone in need. Her mother raised her better than that.

“Ah, don’t you worry about me. Those blood vials you gave me were a great help; I am simply getting to my limit, I think.” He pauses for a few seconds, then continues in a subdued voice, “It won’t be long now.”

Victoria’s heart lurches; Gilbert is one of the few she’s met that still has his sanity, and she doesn’t want to lose one of the two people who talk to her like she’s just a person. Gilbert and Eileen have been a helping hand to her own sanity, so far.

“I’ll bring you more blood vials, just wait a little longer.”

“There’s no need for that, Victoria.”

“I insist.”

He starts to respond, but it’s caught in one of his coughing fits again. When it’s over, he wheezes, sounding too weak to speak.

“I’ll be going now. I’ll be back later with more vials, I promise,” she says, voice firm despite the shaking in her hands. She knows where to find the vials they need. The patrol that killed her always seems to carry some, no matter how many times she loops through the Dream and back again. It’s almost like a sick little game; how many vials can Victoria collect before she goes insane from the senselessness of it?

“Ah, do as you wish, dear hunter. Be careful out there.” Gilbert’s voice is a fraction of what it was, so she says goodbye and takes her leave before he tries to talk even more.

She finds the patrol again, in the same place again, doing the same actions. One of them has a pair of lilac eyes, glowing, a kind of mist flowing out of them. Her blood echoes. Something ugly and dark twists inside her, something she’s been desperately trying to subdue. Something that seems to gain more and more ground as this long night goes on.

She snaps open her saw cleaver and gets to work.

Those blood echoes are hers.

She wants them back.

Back in the Dream, Doll welcomes her.

“Welcome home, good hunter.” It’s the same greeting, over and over, no matter how many times Victoria steps inside the Dream. She answered back the first handful of times, too polite for her own good, like her brother used to say, but after a dozen times it starts to get tedious. The sharp retort of ‘this is not my home’ has almost escaped Victoria’s lips a few times as well, but it’s a moot point getting angry at Doll. She doesn’t respond with anything other than politeness and a strange fondness that almost sounds fake.

Doll has never seemed to notice anything amiss in Victoria’s behavior, even when she stopped saying ‘thank you’ after every greeting. If she was a betting woman, Victoria thinks she would win good money betting that Doll will greet her like this every single time, no matter how many times it takes until Victoria’s out of here.

(until she’s out of the dream that might have seem like a nightmare, were it not for the actual nightmare waiting for her every time she sets foot in Yharnam)

“Come,” Doll says, extending a hand and beckoning her, her delicate doll fingers almost white in the pale light, “I sense so many blood echoes inside you, it will do you well to use them to renew your strength.”

Unsettling, the way Doll always knows Victoria is carrying blood echoes, no matter how little she has. Victoria herself can barely feel them, and she definitely can’t tell how many there are, but Doll always knows. She has this look, something gleeful behind her eyes, every time Victoria steps inside the Dream with echoes inside her. As if she can’t wait to channel them.

It has crossed Victoria’s mind, of course, to ask Doll how she does what she does. Then again, Victoria might as well start by asking how is it that a doll is alive in the first place, but she always, somehow, holds her tongue whenever the question pops up in her mind. It might be politeness, it might be fear, it might even be indifference, though Victoria would like to say she is far from indifferent to her strange situation. It might be something else.

She almost wishes it was something else to blame for her acceptance, rather than her being conditioned, even as she wishes that there was absolutely nothing wrong.

She kneels at Doll’s feet, ignoring how much it looks like servitude, and extends a hand. Doll does whatever it is that she does, and Victoria feels the echoes taking hold of her. It’s almost like taking a sip of alcohol for the first time in months; it burns down her throat and spreads warmth through her limbs, tingling all the way to her fingertips and down to her toes.

When she rises, the alcoholic sway is absent from her steps. Instead, she feels as though she can run laps through Yharnam and back, like she can twirl around the flower field by the right of the workshop for hours, and never get tired.

It won’t last long, she knows. As soon as she steps into filthy streets, the feeling will wane and vanish.

It will leave her wanting more.

Always more.

(more more more)

“Thank you,” she says, more out of habit than any kind of gratitude, no matter how helpful Doll has been for the last... hours? Days? How long has she been here? It feels like forever ago that she was sitting on a comfortable chair, writing a letter that will probably never be delivered, if the post office has gone the way of the rest of Yharnam.

She steps back and turns around before Doll can see the distress on her face, ignoring the serene smile on porcelain lips.

Old Yharnam doesn’t look as old as the name implies, though Victoria doesn’t understand much of architecture. It’s as dark and oppressing as Central Yharnam, and even sadder in its empty streets. Half of her wants to abide by the warning from the voice, but the other half keeps walking the cobbled ground. Something glows amidst the smoke, two points, white and small, and the next thing she knows there's something running toward her.

She swings out and catches the thing by the jaw, sending it sprawling toward the ground. Its frail limbs push it back up and it snarls at her. In the back of her mind Victoria thinks she should be more frightened, or at least disgusted—but she is neither, and that in itself makes her worry.

Even so, her body moves on its own, already used to the movements of her weapon, its weight carefully gripped in a hand she never thought would be able to lift anything so heavy.

She dispatches her attacker with a slice through its neck, opening it up like soft butter. The blood splashes on her face, and she winces in brief disgust, but is soon distracted by a scream. Another creature has seen her, and it screams again as she lays eyes on it, its voice laced with anger and agony in equal measure. They run toward her, stance aggressive and maybe born out of fear.

She makes quick work of them too.

All the subsequent creatures she encounters look greyish like the first one, half-starved and half-mad, eyes glowing in the middle of the fog and smoke. The man in the tower compliments her prowess as a hunter, but he sounds angry, perhaps resigned. It’s an odd combination. Victoria almost feels bad, because this man, for whatever reason, seems to care for these creatures. But the tingling of blood echoes accumulating inside her is such a welcoming sensation that the concern and the guilt soon slip her mind, like they were never there.

She’s just doing her job.

And her job is to hunt things.

Eileen told her that a hunter must hunt, and so hunt she will.

(since when is this your job?)

It’s when she descends the stairs that her situation gets complicated. The man in the tower—she can see it clearly now—doesn’t give her a moment to get her footing before shooting a machine gun at her. The sound it makes as it hits the ground at her feet is loud, so loud that it attracts unwanted attention. Soon she’s contending with creatures left and right, so fast and ravenous for her blood that she almost misses Central Yharnam’s own horrors.

At another lower level she’s attacked by someone that looks human still, even as they don’t talk. It takes a few seconds of dodging all sorts of bullets before Victoria realizes she’s dealing with a hunter.

A mad hunter.

(Eileen’s job, your job now too)

(since when?)

(does it matter?)

(yes no yes yes no)

The hunter kills her four times before she manages to get him; each time she’s greeted back at the Dream with a ‘welcome home’, of course, and for the first time since it all began, Victoria smiles at Doll, taking the words at face value. They still ring hollow, but it’s somewhat soothing to hear it after listening to screams and guns and more screams for hours.

She steps back into Old Yharnam with a renewed sense of purpose.

Killing the mad hunter is exhilarating. She understands why Eileen does this now. The blood of a hunter is different than that of a beast. As it soaks the front of her coat, she can feel its warmth, can smell the sweet scent of something beneath the metallic odor. It’s almost like it’s... singing. Victoria shakes her head and reminds herself that she’s got a job to do. If the man in the tower is protecting beasts, then she will root around this place brick by brick by cobblestone, until she finds each and every last one of them.

Deeper into Old Yharnam, Victoria bypasses another giant beast in a crucifix, another crude demonstration of what happens to those who go mad. The irony is not lost on her; beasts crucified by beasts, beasts crucified by soon-to-be-beasts.

(beasts hunting beasts hunting beasts)

She almost bypasses the altar.

Almost.

But something stops her.

Just a small whisper, perhaps something imagined. But it clings to her, like a pair of fingers gently grabbing her ear and pulling her toward the altar.

It sits there, atop the stone, encased in a small glass bottle. Red. So, so red.

Blood.

Her hand shakes as she grabs it with a delicacy she’s seldom used since she’s started to hunt. The blood sloshes inside the bottle, more vibrant than it should be outside of a body. She absently wonders if it belongs to the beast on the crucifix behind her, but in the end it doesn’t matter. This is what she’s been looking for.

(is it?)

(it is it is it is)

She pockets the bottle with care, knowing somehow that it won’t break. It will stay there, in her pocket, safe and sound, until she can use it.

(use it on what?)

Her steps, now lighter, more resolved, take her deeper into Old Yharnam. She passes through an entrance to what looks like a small courtyard, with the disturbing birds that sound like dogs, that now almost feel like commonplace.

Finding the shortcut ladder is another highlight of this hunt.

She dispatches the grey creatures and the werewolves with difficulty, dying two times before getting the hang of the ambushes, and soon she’s stepping down some stairs that lead to a church. It looks pretty from afar, as pretty as anything can be in this god forsaken land, even with the fires and the dead trees and the eyes she can feel following her as she descends the steps.

Something whispers to her again. Nothing discernible, nothing that can be pinpointed as to what or who or why, but it calls her all the same.

She steps inside the church with a feeling that this will lead to something good. The place is big, with most of the walls and ceiling missing. But the columns stand strong and large against the ground, which is starting to give, as if under the weight of something unseen. There’s a thing at the end of the sprawling church. It’s hunched forward, and as Victoria approaches she realizes it’s almost standing on four legs, but there’s something bizarre about its hind legs. It’s as if they weren’t made to stand like that, in a wide stance that certainly hurts its knees, front legs much longer in comparison.

The thing is covered in an old, ratty piece of cloth that might have been a mantle or cloak at some point.

Oh.

(oh)

It’s another beast.

Another human that’s not a human anymore.

Suddenly the weird angle of the hind legs makes sense. Those bones and tissues were never made to stand like that, to move like that.

They must be in terrible pain.

Victoria will take them out of their misery.

The fight is not as long as she thought it would be, with only one death—Doll kept looking at her pocket while she was in the Dream—, but the poison is most annoying. Victoria injects some blood onto her thigh and swings her saw cleaver in a small arc forward, flicking it open on the next swing and slicing open the beast’s head with the gnarled teeth of her blade.

The beast struggles for a second, head open, dark blood oozing slowly out of it. They let out a last scream, gurgling at the end. Their eyes stare, unseeing, at the sky. The poison fumes are strong and Victoria needs to take another antidote pill as the beast finally vanishes into the air, as if they were never there at all.

Something clangs as it falls to the ground.

Something clangs inside Victoria’s mind as well, metal on metal, equal on equal.

(here)

It’s a chalice.

A golden chalice.

Victoria stares at it for a full minute, eager to hold it but afraid to touch it with her bloody, filthy hands.

(hold it. hold it close. it hungers)

(it hungers for blood)

She approaches it, one slow step in front of the other, reverence in her movements. She goes down on both knees and cradles the chalice close to her face. For a moment it looks like it shudders as the blood on her hands stain the gold, dark with dust and grime, but still gleaming under the moonlight and the distant torches up on the columns.

The chalice is beautiful. It’s etched with intricate designs, a series of abstract swirls, long winding paths and some strange motifs that she can’t recall ever seeing before. It’s a big piece, something that one would not use for everyday drinking.

(one wouldn’t use it for drinking at all)

She holds it close to her chest as she rises, the subtle call of the lamp beckoning her closer. She lights it up with the tips of her fingers, a simple thought, a glimpse of light in her mind. A lone messenger shows up to wave at her, cheerful amidst the grimy ground and the stench of things better left unsaid. She kneels and the messenger bows their head, as if praying with her, and by the next blink she’s staring at a cobblestone ground.

The Dream smells sweet, like flowers. She’s never noticed it before.

“Welcome home, good hunter. I see the hunt was most successful.” Doll’s eyes are already on the chalice when Victoria looks at her.

“Yes,” Victoria answers, suddenly uncertain of how to act; the way she’s holding the chalice is telling. A wave of embarrassment runs over her.

Doll looks up at her face and smiles, placid, serene. “May I channel your echoes for you? Then you might proceed with the ritual, if you wish.”

(yes)

(oh yes)

“Oh, of course.” Victoria steps closer and enjoys the familiar rush through her veins. It doesn’t cross her mind to ask what the ritual is, or how Doll knows about it, or why she feels like she needs to go right now and look and see and experience whatever it is that’s waiting for her down there.

(down where?)

(down there)

It doesn’t cross her mind at all.

(down where they all go)

Doll points her to one of the headstones on the left, near the path that leads to the back of the workshop. Victoria approaches the first one, but the headstone sits quiet, unmoving, unbreathing. Then she approaches the second one and the chalice shudders in her hands. She looks down at it, rolling it around in her grip, unwilling to part with it so soon. When she takes a look under it, she stops.

There’s something inscribed on the metal, the letters elegant, as if by a careful, loving hand.

_Let the chalice reveal the tomb of the gods; let blood be the hunter's nourishment... And let ye partake in communion..._

(communion, yes)

(let us partake in it)

(and we will find more of it... deeper)

A shiver runs down Victoria’s spine, fast and intense, almost euphoric. It dissipates quickly, but the impression it leaves behind is as good as a blood echoes rush. Suddenly eager to get to it, she places the chalice carefully upon the altar, among the half-burned candles, fingers unconsciously smoothing down the metal. Then she grabs the glass bottle with the blood, the dark red blood, the precious blood, and opens it.

The smell should have been metallic, but all Victoria can sense it’s the sweetness of it. She pours it into the chalice and watches as it swirls around of its own accord, darkening to a near black. A handful of messengers emerge from the stone base, hands up in prayer, supplication. Contrary to all the other times Victoria has used a headstone, these messengers are not looking at her.

They’re looking at the headstone.

It’s a common enough headstone, with the straight base and the rounded top, and in the middle of it there’s another type of stone that might have been some engraving at some point, but now it only looks like something melted the figure off. Moss covers some of the stone, but it doesn’t actually look to be in disrepair. She wonders, briefly, if Doll takes care of them when she isn’t here.

One of the messengers is looking at the sky instead of the headstone. Something tickles at her mind at that, something asking her to look at the sky too. But the sky has been the same since she got here, never changing, always grey and cloudy and empty.

(never empty)

(shhhhhhh)

“I have to go,” Victoria murmurs to herself, not quite sure why she does it.

“May you have a successful hunt, good hunter,” Doll answers anyway.

It doesn’t cross her mind to wonder how Doll could have heard her.

(she hears everything)

Victoria kneels, closing her eyes and holding out a hand to the chalice. A small hand touches her, and then she’s gone.

The first step into what the inscription called the tomb of the gods is almost like coming home.

(she has a home already, doesn’t she?)

(where is it? why isn’t she there?)

(shhhhh)

The first room is small, cobblestone ground, brick walls, the roots of what must be giant trees. They reach almost to the ground, coming from somewhere above, but looking up only reveals a high ceiling and some torches. Somehow, she’s below ground.

Victoria quakes at the thought; she’s below ground.

Below ground.

Finally.

(finally)

Past the doorless entryway, she finds another room with a door. The carvings on it are intricate, beautiful, the finest craftsmanship. Two statues guard the door, their yellow-lighted lanterns illuminating the headstones at their feet. The ceiling is high here as well, with two incense holders suspended from it, burning something sweet and flowery. They remind her of the thuribles from her hometown church, and she wonders—hopes, really—if this place is a place of worship.

(it is)

(she will give them blood, she will worship them)

(they will give her knowledge in return)

(oh, to see everything the tomb guards might be the highest ecstasy)

The door opens easily under her strength, where in the past it would have taken five of her to make it move at all. Beyond the door there’s another passage and another lamp. This area is messier than the last one, with weeds growing through the cobblestones, dirt and old fabric and whatever else lining the ground.

It’s clear that whoever built this place did it with care, but it has long been left to the whims of time and disrepair, though the fabrics behind the statues still retain their beautiful wine red color. A few more steps and she finds a ladder leading to a lower level, and here’s where the tomb really begins. She can feel the pull of blood and power from the giant rats skulking around in the muck. This new room is enormous, like an arena, reminiscent of the church where she fell the man-turned-beast.

She kills everything and goes forth, almost dying on an oil pit and saving herself at the last second.

One of the sack men tries to snatch her up, and she dies two more times before killing him.

The room with the swinging axes and the cages is tricky, but the farther she moves along them, the eager she gets. It’s like the blood in her veins is vibrating along with the way the tomb pulsates around her, the walls seeming to close and expand. Breathing in, breathing out.

Her supply of vials and bullets is easily restocked with the creatures she kills, and Victoria feels at ease, even as a rat takes a chunk out of her leg through her trousers. It puts her in a bad spot for a few seconds, as the blood vial she injects directly into the wound does its job of stitching her back together. The wound tingles as the muscles regenerate, and when the skin finally closes around her flesh, all she’s left with is the itching that comes with it.

Past the swinging axes she hears a familiar bell, and for the first time since she entered the tomb, her elation and curiosity are substituted by annoyance. Getting rid of the red creatures is fairly easy, except when they’re guarding the bell woman with such ferociousness. But nothing that a couple of tries doesn’t resolve.

In the end, the bell woman isn’t the problem here.

The real problem is big, tall and fat and white, with glistening skin and way faster than it should be, considering the size. It kills her an embarrassing three times before she manages to get the upper hand. The not-quite-a-man lets out a moan and swings his club in her direction. She ripostes him and plunges her right hand into his stomach, grabbing whatever she can find and pulling hard.

What may be his actual stomach falls out of her hand, followed by some pieces of intestines. There’s too much blood to see well, but as he falls on his back, dead for now, she can see some of the innards glistening in the light.

She licks her lips.

The room finally quiets down, everything in it dead. She pulls the lever, unsure of what it does, but knowing that she has to pull it. She has to. And so she does.

(why are you here? there is nothing of value here)

(I am not looking for value)

The tomb shakes, in glee and something else. Somewhere, a door has opened.

She has to go.

Back into the big room, she finds another ladder, another passageway, another door. Greenish light greets her at the first entrance, and for a moment, just a moment, she can almost see the statues looking at her.

But maybe it’s just a trick of the light.

(there is nothing of honor here)

(I am not looking for honor)

The door at the end of the short hall is small, but still intricately decorated, just as all the others. Made with care, with pride. Victoria doesn’t know what’s behind it, but the tomb urges her forward, downward.

She opens the door.

(what are you looking for?)

(everything)

She stares as the giant falls, dead. It shakes the ground for a second, and then it explodes into mist, vanishing into the air. Eleven tries. It took her eleven tries to kill it, and now that it’s dead and its echoes are in her veins, Victoria feels a smile pulling at the corner of her lips.

She hasn’t smiled in a long, long time.

She pockets the blood gem and lights the lamp, finally finding time to look around the room. Weeds and debris line the floor, but beyond that she can also see armor pieces and human bones. The armors are peculiar; she wonders how long they've been there, for armor is basically medieval by now.

It hammers home, then, how old this place must be. Centuries, perhaps millenia of old stones and old things and old gods, and she’s standing inside it, allowed to see what others might only dream of.

Truly, she is lucky.

She is grateful.

She needs to see more.

She has to go deeper.

The lift beckons her. _Here,_ it says, _step right here and go lower._

_Deeper._

She shivers, excitement blooming in her chest. But first, a stop at the Dream. She wants the rush of blood echoes.

Doll does what she always does, but when Victoria’s on her feet again, she almost seems to frown as she stares.

“What is it?” Victoria asks, willing to humor Doll since she’s in such high spirits.

“How was your hunt, good hunter?”

“It was good. Very good. I’m going back soon.” Victoria knows there’s a big smile on her face, but she doesn’t mind showing it to Doll.

“...I see. I am happy that you’ve found your worth,” Doll answers, sounding almost... disappointed.

But Victoria has no time to wonder at her dismay. She needs more blood vials; she needs to go into Central Yharnam and hunt boring things before going back to the tomb. She turns toward the headstone and something scratches at her mind, some half-forgotten memory that wants to push to the front. She promised something, didn’t she? Something about blood vials. Someone needs blood vials.

Someone needs blood.

Who?

She racks her brain for a face, a name, a voice, but nothing comes. The sweet scent of white flowers permeate the air.

Ah, well.

If it was truly important, she wouldn’t have forgotten.

“So you’ve gone mad, have you? I’ll put you out of your misery.” These are the words Eileen greets her with, as they stumble upon each other outside Oedon Chapel.

 _Victoria,_ something calls her, _come._

“One moment,” she answers, dodging as Eileen aims for her head.

“Not a moment longer, Victoria. I cannot let you live.” Eileen is strong, but the voices are stronger.

_Victoria, we are waiting._

It’s the tomb, the labyrinth, the maze under Yharnam. The beautiful structure, man-made and god-lived, the filthy walls and ground and the sweet smell of blood and something _other_. The lower levels, the ones she hasn’t explored. They want her, and she wants them.

And Eileen is in the way.

 _Victoria_ , the voices say, _come. Come see._

She gasps as Eileen slashes her across the face with one of her sharp, sharp blades. The wound stings, making her scrunch her eyes shut and get a kick to the stomach for it. But the tombs call to her. She cannot die here, it would be improper. She hasn’t seen the last floor yet, and she has to find the other chalices too. So many places to explore, so many new creatures to maul, so many blood gems to try out.

And they’re waiting for her.

 _Victoria,_ they say again, _come and see. Come walk into us, Victoria. We’re here. We’re waiting._

_Waiting for you._

“I’m coming,” she mumbles to nothing and no one, shuddering, a gust of cold wind trying to blow her matted hair from her face. She needs to find materials. She needs them, needs them now, they’re waiting, they’re waiting for her, waiting waiting waitingwaitingwaiting—

“You’re not going anywhere but your grave, Victoria,” Eileen says, but Eileen doesn’t understand.

Victoria can’t die here.

She needs to _see_ first.

Her canines elongate and catch on her lip as she snarls at Eileen. She lunges forward with the cleaver in closed form and catches Eileen in the arm, the rusty teeth tearing at her flesh. Blood, warm and beautiful, spurts from the wound. Some of it splashes on Victoria’s face, and she licks it. Cannot let good blood go to waste.

“I am sorry. I did not see this sooner. But soon it’ll be over,” Eileen sounds sure in her words, and Victoria agrees.

Soon, it’ll be over.

While Eileen defends another swing of the cleaver, Victoria surges forward and latches onto her neck with her newly sharp teeth. Eileen is strong, fast, nimble. Eileen taught Victoria how to swing without losing her arm in the process. Eileen slew Henryk without much of a sweat, while Victoria was left panting on the ground.

But not even Eileen can come back from a ripped neck.

The blood gushes outward. Eileen stumbles for a moment, perhaps shocked, before falling to her knees.

“Victoria... the nightmare must end,” Eileen gurgles through the blood in her mouth.

(there is no nightmare, Eileen. can’t you see?)

(there is only the dream)

And then Eileen is just another body on the ground. Another one that Victoria has killed.

But that’s okay. She’s a hunter. And a hunter must hunt. Eileen’s blood echoes will aid her in the journey to come.

She hobbles forward, leaving Eileen’s body behind. She looks for the glow of a lamp, for the whispers of the little ones. She needs to get back to the dream, heal up, stack up on provisions and go back out into Yharnam.

(she _needs_ them)

A small, weak part of her wants to go back. Back into the Dream, back to the hunt. Back to Gilbert and Eileen and the little girl and the poor man in the chapel. This small part of her wants to know if her mother received her letter, if she’s worried that Victoria never went home. Wants to know if her brother fell to the disease, and also wants to keep her brother far, far away from Yharnam and its horrors.

But that part is small, and weak, and fragile. That part gets smothered, choked by blood and starlight every time it tries to speak.

That small part is dying.

But that’s okay.

Where Victoria’s going, she won’t need this part no more.

She just needs to keep going. Just a little deeper. Just to see what’s there. Curiosity is a healthy, normal character trait to have, her mother used to say. And she just needs to see a little more, to understand a little more, just gain a little more knowledge about everything.

Knowledge is power, right?

Just one more.

Just a little bit more.

Just another room.

Just another labyrinth.

She just has to go

a little

bit

_deeper_.


	2. [fanmix]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the fanmix that accompanies the story in chapter 1. The songs follow the story's progression and Victoria's descent into madness and fixation. That said, the fanmix can also follow the progression of the game itself, since it stars lighter and slowly gets heavier, ending on a melancholic note, just like Bloodborne's story.
> 
> You can listen to it on [openwhyd](https://openwhyd.org/u/5f9818ddbdb995520b55a859/playlist/0), on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIygnSBsXurCTJoo4o2gCg03-2MhlT7RX), [or download it from gdrive](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ugxds2er1CqWwUTsRKvOQ8Sz9HAyssv6/view?usp=sharing).  
> 

1 - Requiem For A Dream (music box version), by Lucas King  
2 - MELANCHOLIA (music box), by Ryan Creep  
3 - Dark Für Elise, by Lucas King  
4 - Moonlight Sonata (detuned piano), by Lucas King  
5 - Bad Thoughts, by Ronald Lynn Dickison  
6 - Twilight Dance, by Ronald Lynn Dickison  
7 - What Went We, by Mark Korven  
8 - Arrival, by Mark Korven  
9 - Fog, by MONST3R  
10 - The Mark (Interlude), by Moderat  
11 - Come In The Whisper, by Phonothek  
12 - Beatrice's Euphoria, by Wordclock  
13 - Lucifer's Hymn, by Peter Gundry  
14 - The Old Horns, by Ronald Lynn Dickison  
15 - Monks of the Dark Abbey, by Derek & Brandon Fiechter  
16 - Transductio, by Metatron Omega  
17 - Godhead Emanation, by Metatron Omega  
18 - Occult Communication, by Aram 17  
19 - Genius Loci Pt. I, by Inade  
20 - Apotheosis, by Metatron Omega  
21 - Final Prayer, by Inade  
22 - The Manifestation, by Dead Melodies  
23 - In the Company of Ruin, by Dead Melodies  
24 - Remnants of the Missing, by Dead Melodies  
25 - Haunted by Whispers, by Dead Melodies  
26 - The Collector's Harvest, by Dead Melodies  
27 - Bound to Memory, by Dead Melodies  
28 - Messy Hearts, by Moon Ate the Dark  
29 - Reminiscence, by Ólafur Arnalds & Alice Sara Ott  
30 - I Miss You, by Ronald Lynn Dickison


End file.
